News

Seeing the rain today got me thinking. After installing two new skylights yesterday for a customer, I thought to myself, there must be so many people with leaking or damaged skylights. Repairs can only get you so far and last you so long. Usually it will be someone over charging for a caulk job.

We recommend doing the job right by replacing your skylight entirely. Skylights are made much differently now. They can bounce heat away in the summer when you don't want it, and absorb it in the winter when you do! There are so many benefits to getting your skylight(s) replaced, BEFORE it's too late!

With the Green Revolution upon us, there is a lot more emphasis on sealing and insulating homes across America and for good reason. Fuel will always be a commodity that we as homeowners have very little control over. The cost of fuel is driven up or down by many different factors. I think we all know which direction it will head in the near future. We cannot control the cost of the fuel it takes to keep our homes comfortable, but we can control the amount of fuel we need by upgrading the building shell of our homes.

We retrofit homes with injected foam all the time whether the siding is being replaced or not, but the project can be done for close to 40% less when you are planning a new siding job. We save the labor of manipulating your existing siding knowing new siding is in your plans. Most homes in this area are way under-insulated, especially the exterior wall cavities. It is common to find little or no insulation in the walls of homes over 30 years old.

After 30 years in the roofing and siding business, I’ve gained a lot of insight into what makes for a successful remodeling project. At this time of year roofing and siding projects are high on the list of home improvements.

I would like to point out a few things that are a must to consider before contracting a new roof or siding project. During the installation of new siding or roofing is the best, most cost efficient time to upgrade insulation. Making improvements to the aesthetics of the building at the same time as upgrading in home performance areas is more cost effective than doing them independently.

If every American home replaced just one light with a light that's earned the ENERGY STAR, we would save enough energy to light 3 million homes for a year, save about $600 million in annual energy costs, and prevent 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to those from about 800,000 cars. See ourSTORE to get yours today!

On cold winter days, a ray of sun streaming into your house can be most welcome - a free source of heat. But what about in the summer, when those rays of sun and other, less-evident solar heat, seep into our already too-hot houses and become a costly nuisance? Well, what happens is that you lose money. But using landscaping (namely by planting trees) to shade your home can be a great way to lower energy costs.

Pending in the Senate is a bill called the Home Star Retrofit Act of 2010, or simply Home Star for short. Sometimes referred to as Cash for Caulkers in street slang, the bill would provide a series of financial incentives for homeowners to increase the energy efficiency of their homes through substantive, effective improvements to their homes that save homeowners money, reduce our country’s carbon emissions, help to mitigate climate change, and put tens of thousands of Americans back to work.

One of the biggest energy guzzlers in your home (besides, most likely, your thermal envelope, which lets expensive conditioned air escape through air leaks and poorly insulated walls) is the refrigerator. Upgrading it, believe it or not, can save you a bundle of money in the long run, as long as you don't simply put your old fridge down in the basement and plug it back in. Now, before you balk at the high upfront cost of replacing your fridge, let us explain why we (admittedly, energy-efficiency/penny-pinching geeks) think it's a good idea: